Time is a fickle thing
by Are You Afraid of the Dark
Summary: Strife mannor, now A top B&B, is rumored to be haunted by the lonely ghost of a child who accedentaly drown back in the victorian era. But was Sora's death really an accedent? riku needs to find out fast. after all, history repeats its self...who's next?


AN: For the best effect, listen to Enya- Boadicea from the point where Sora wakes up in bed….it's what I was listening to when I wrote it….you'll know the spot when you see it

**Prologue**

**1842 West Virginia **

**GENERAL**

"Roxas! Come look at this!"

Sora leaned out further from the safety of the wooden planked dock to look out over the sparkling, clear waters of the South Wood Lake, tugging impatiently at the loose nail digging into his pant leg so he could lean over for a closer look with out the loose material tearing. He could just barely make out, in the cool, shadowed, almost murky depths, long, waving green tendrils of a type of water plant. He pointed it out to his twin as the younger boy peeked over the side with him.

"Look at them! It's like a mini forest down there!" he exclaimed, his voice awed and delighted as he watched them wave gently back and forth in the mock tides of the lake.

Truthfully, it was more of a pond than a lake, since the other side was clearly visible and easily accessible by a ten or so minuet walk. But, never having seen an actual lake before, the twins had promptly decided to name it "South Wood Lake" since, as the two fifteen year olds teasingly put it, it was located in the middle of the South Woods, which their family owned, and it was larger than their bath tub. This was the first time they had been out to the 'lake,' and Sora was fascinated.

"Hey! Don't fall in you two! Especially you Roxas! You know you can't swim!" Sora turned his head slightly and waved a distracted hand at his older brother.

"Cloud! Come look!" With a sigh, the taller blond stood from the soft red blanket he had been reclining on, sending his friend, who was still laying comfortably on the cloth covered grass, an eye roll.

"You had better come too, Seph. You know they'll be calling you over next." The silver haired boy shrugged un-interestedly.

"I'll wait until then." he said dryly, not really expecting the two twins to pay him any mind. They normally didn't and he was more than a little annoyed that the two brats always seemed to be calling Cloud away from him to do one thing or another. Well, Sora was. Roxas was more of the independent type.

"Sephiroth! You have to come and see this too!"

Oh, for the love of-

Of all the times for those brats to remember his existence. With an annoyed sigh, he stood and stretched, following the smirking blond.

"Look!" Sora squealed excitedly as the two of them approached. Even Cloud had to admit the scene was pretty, but before the boys could try and get a closer look, he pulled them away.

"Come on, or the ants will steal your food Sora." he said, laughing when the younger brunet yelped and raced back to their picnic. Roxas simply shook his head and followed his brother, much more slowly, with Cloud and Sephiroth bringing up the rear, the later giving the waters a disinterested glance.

"Can you believe this is all pretty much in our back yard?" Sora asked as he set out some of the food from the good sized wicker basket they had brought along with them, waving his hand in the general direction of his left in which, if you looked hard enough, you would have seen through the trees the slanted roof and towers of the large, sprawling house that belonged to the Strife family. It was a nice house by anyone's standards, three story (not counting the attic) with a wrap around porch and beautiful scaffolding, especially around the upstairs balcony. The lawns swept outward in a gently slopping green carpet that was welcoming, made even more so by the flower gardens that dotted the yard, strategically planted and well cared for, adding bright splashes of color to the sweeping estates, and the swing attached to the giant oak tree in the yard with the white metal table sitting out in the shade of one of it's many limbs. It was perched on top of a small, gently rolling hill, and surrounded on three sides by the forests, or South Woods. It was the pride of the town, and the Strife family, who had lived there for the last twenty years when Mr. Strife had bought it for his lovely young bride, adored it.

"It is a little hard to believe." Roxas agreed, stealing a sandwich and munching on it. "Especially when you go into town and look at the rest of the houses."

The Strife house was indeed the largest house with the largest amount of property in town. It was the envy and the talk of the neighborhood, even if it was a little secluded. The only way to get there form the town below the hill was to go up the little winding dirt road in your horse and buggy. Even so, it was a good thirty or so minuet walk, and twenty by horse, unless your horse was going at a gallop.

The rest of the day was passed as usual, with good natured playing and even some 'swimming lessons,' which mostly consisted of Sora splashing around in the shallows and pouring large glasses full of water on Roxas's head when his brother wasn't paying enough attention. (he had tried the same thing with Cloud and Sephiroth and had gotten his ears boxed for his troubles.) Cloud simply sat reading and Sephiroth took a quick nap.

However, when the mud fight began, the eldest Strife decided to call it quits for that day. He woke up his silver haired friend and pulled the two warring twins off of each other and out of the shallows.

"Come on you two…we'll have to get you cleaned up before father and mother come home with their guests. You _know _they're having a dinner party tonight, and it wouldn't look good if you two showed up dripping mud all over the floor. Zexion will have a fit!" He laughed. Sora squirmed out of his grip and ran though the large, shady tree trunks ahead of them.

"It's too bad Zexion couldn't come with us…" he said from up ahead, loud enough for the others behind him to hear.

Zexion was a live-in house keeper, of sorts. His parents had died in a diphtheria outbreak several years before. He had befriended Cloud when they had attended school together. The boy was exceedingly smart, and despite being only seventeen himself, was hired as a tutor to the two younger boys and he had, over time, take on the house hold chose himself. In turn, he lived with the Strifes and had become pretty much another member of the family, just as Sephiroth had.

"He said he had cooking to do." Cloud said with a laugh. "He's helping mom and dad get ready for tonight." Sora made a face.

"Zexion works to hard. He needs to learn to have fun instead of playing with those puzzles he does and doing math equations….and giving us homework!" he made a face. Cloud laughed.

Roxas, who had been brining up the rear and carrying the basket, looked curiously over his shoulder, hesitating for a moment, his eyes narrowed, staring out over the lake . Sephiroth, noticing this, stopped as well, looking back at the younger teen.

"What is the matter?" he asked blandly. The blond was silent for a moment before turning back to look at the older man.

"Nothing. Just thought I heard something." He answered vaguely as he brushed past the other without another word. Sephiroth glared at the boy's back (it was a well known fact that the twins and Sephiroth just didn't get along) before following.

Sure enough, Zexion hadn't been two happy with the twins and their muddy state and had sent them up to take baths before they got the house all muddy.

Cloud laughed as Zexion practically kicked them up the stairs. His friend turned to look at him, the older boy's face as unreadable as ever.

"I came up with a story for you, and I confirmed it with Arieth and Tiffa." He said bluntly. Cloud let out a sigh of relief.

"What did you tell them?" He asked. Zexion grinned a grin that made the entire room seem several degrees cooler.

"I told them you were discussing wedding plans with Arieth."

"……WHAT!?" Cloud felt his face pale. Zexion chuckled.

"They already think you're going to marry her anyway…." He said as he headed back into the kitchen, which was filling the house with the warm, spicy, mouth-water inducing smell of Zexion's freshly prepared food. "…and you know and I know that Arieth and Zack are already engaged, even if no one else does." he glanced over his shoulder at Cloud, who had followed him in with a large scowl plastered on his face. "Besides, it was the only thing that could pacify them for your skipping out on the business meeting today, and you know it." Cloud said nothing, and Zexion knew he had won. He turned back to his cooking.

The dinner went off without a hitch, for the most part. It was a business dinner between Mr. Strife and some very important lenders to the bank he was manager of. Mr. Strife sat at the head of the long table with Cloud and Mrs. Strife on his left and right respectively. Then, seated next to them were their guests, then the oh so very clean twins, with Sephiroth and Zexion seated at the end, facing each other.

Sometime during the small talk, Roxas looked up form his food.

"I think there was someone in the woods behind our house today…a trespasser."

The chatter trialed off and everyone looked at the youngest Strife curiously.

"What makes you say that, Roxas?" Mr. Strife asked as he cut a forkful of roast. Roxas watched him blankly.

"Sora and I were out by the lake and when we were leaving, I though I head someone humming behind us, talking maybe. I looked but I couldn't see who they were, though." he answered, conveniently leaving out the fact that Cloud had been there with them. One of the younger men at the table chuckled, taking a sip of wine.

"You know, talk in the town is that those woods are haunted. Maybe it was some of the village lads daring each other to go up to the pond. That _is_ where all the ghosts are supposed to be." He laughed again, but the sound faded under the stern look Mr. Strife and his colleagues gave him.

"Foolishness!" One of the men, a tall, skinny one who's long black hair Roxas and Sora both thought could use a good washing, said firmly. "Honestly, Mr. Baker, don't go filling the boys heads with such nonsense as ghost stories." He looked over a the twins, small blue eyes narrowing. "There's no such thing as ghosts."

"Quite right!" Mr. Strife agreed, draining the rest of his glass and pouring himself another. "All of those silly stories, can't be very good for business, don't you think Cloud?" His eldest son nodded silently. Huffing at the simple response, Mr. Strife turned his attention back to Roxas.

"Well, maybe it was Sora, or maybe it was the wind. Either way, I doubt it's anything to be concerned about." He turned back to the men he hoped to soon be business partners with. "Now, gentlemen , where were we….?"

"I didn't hear anything…" Sora said as he peeled off his vest, pants and shirt, folding them neatly and tossing them haphazardly into a nearby chair before pulling his night gown over his head. Roxas, on the other hand, both folded his clothes and carefully laid them in his drawer before changing, replying with "Well, I did." as he climbed into bed.

"what did it sound like?" Sora asked eagerly, mimicking his twin's actions and pulling the quilt up to his chin. Roxas was silent for a moment, thoughtful.

"Like a woman humming a song….a kind of sad one…" he shivered slightly, tugging his own quilt up higher. "and kind of creepy." he added. Sora's face broke into a large grin.

"Do you suppose…" he asked, dropping his voice to a whisper and looking around as if afraid someone would hear them in their little room on the third floor "that the forest is haunted like they all say in town?" His twin snorted.

"Ridiculous!" he snapped, and Sora's face fell slightly. "Everyone in town who spreads such rumors are absolutely ridiculous and obviously has to much free time on their hands….Ghosts aren't real, just as Mr. Hojo said. Now go to sleep!" Vaguely annoyed by his twin's gullibility and tired from a day of fun, Roxas rolled over and fell promptly to sleep. Sora, however, lay awake for a while more, thinking about the rumors and the possibilities that maybe, at least one of them could be true, before sleep finally made his eyes close of their own accord. Soon he was snoring softly in his bed.

The moon was shinning, bright and silver in the sky when Sora awoke with a start. He had been having a wonderful, if kind of odd, dream about visiting some weird and very different worlds with a duck and a dog like thing, killing shadows as he went, and he was vaguely annoyed at being wakened. He was about to roll over and go back to sleep when whatever it was that had woke him in the first place caught his attention again.

It was humming.

It was faint, but it was there, coming from just outside his window. Standing, he made his way to the window and inched it open. There it was, carried softly on the summer night's breeze. Glancing over at his still slumbering brother, Sora concluded that this was the same humming Roxas had heard out in the forest that afternoon. It had to be!

Slipping silently out the window and onto the roof, Sora decided then and there that he was going to find the source of the sad, alluring song. Maybe it was a ghost! Without a second thought, he grabbed onto one of the large oak branches near his window and climbed carefully down. When his feet touched the soft grass, he stood listening for as moment, trying to discern what direction it was coming from.

It sounded like a lullaby, he decided as he darted off across the yard, the full moon above him in the cloudless sky allowing him to see as well as if he had had a lantern.

A frustrating lullaby, he added a second later. No matter how close he got to the sound, it always seemed to be right ahead of him, just out of his grasp.

Determined to show his father that Roxas hadn't been imagining things and wanting to find the owner of the beautiful voice (it was a woman, of that he was certain) he didn't stop, not even when the song led him into South Woods. Not even when the large trees blocked out most of the moonlight, save for patches of it here and there, hardly giving him enough light to see where the trees were. In fact, he tripped over a few roots, but he always scrambled up again almost immediately to follow the haunting melody.

He didn't stop until he reached the lake they had played at earlier, until he was once again standing on the dock in the clearing, looking out over the lake, now a bright, burnished sliver. It seemed to be glowing with moonlight. It was completely silent. Even rustling breeze in the trees was gone, and not a single ripple disturbed the surface of the pond. Only the lullaby broke the soundless air, seemingly everywhere and yet no where at the same time.

He stood, enraptured, in the clearing made all of moonlit silver, the tune working it's spell on him, holding him there, and somewhere in the back of his mind the strangeness of all of it might have registered. It was, however, ignored as he swayed slightly in time with the tune.

_"It's fairy music…._" his thoughts seemed sluggish and unimportant. _ "a human could never make music that wonderful."_

The spell was broken suddenly. One moment he was looking out over the pond, expression dreamy and eyes glassy, and the next moment, he was breaking the smooth surface of the water. It was an icy cold he had never experienced before, not even when he broke the surface of the skating lake when he was seven. The shock forced some of his precious air from his lungs as he sank. Above the water, the wind suddenly started up again as the moon passed under a cloud, shrouding the empty clearing in shadows.

Sora finally came out of his daze as he floated down among the pond weeds he had been admiring earlier. Even as he began to panic, he noted that they were not nearly as pretty close up as they had been from afar in the warm summer sun.

Struggling to brighten himself in the murky water, he kicked his legs, propelling himself towards the surface. He couldn't tell how far he was from air, since everything was oh so dark and cold. Oh, the cold! He knew that when he got out of there, he would never forget the cold, cold feeling of the water at the bottom of the pond.

It never occurred to him that he might not get out.

Then, for a split second, the cloud passed, and he could see that he only had a few more feet-just a few more-to go.

_A little bit more_ he thought _Jut a little bit….then, air! Fresh, beautiful air! _He would never take it for granted again. Never.

He felt his upraised fingers break the surface and his heart jumped with relief. He went to kick his legs that final time, when he jerked to a stop. Panic surged up in him and he began to struggle. His head felt light. His vision was clouding. And he COULD. NOT. MOVE. FORWARD!!! That last foot and a half was right there, right within his reach, and he could. Not. Move. Forward.

Swinging around, he looked and found the problem. One of the longer weeds had become tangled around his ankle. Reaching down, he grabbed the cold, slimy plant in his hands and tried desperately to undo the knots. But all of his struggling had pulled them tighter, and the old plants were to thick and tough for him to break, even though he tried and tried. He tried until, even though the moon slid back out from behind the clouds, he could no longer see, tried until his small, lifeless body sank down to join the plant that held him hostage at the bottom of the pond, and he became as cold as the waving tendrils around him.

When Roxas woke the next morning, he found his brother's bed empty and cold, the window open, and a nice, warm breeze fluttering the white lace curtains, accompanying the cheerful, bright summer sunshine.

Figuring his twin had gone down to breakfast already, he thought nothing of it until Zexion, who was the one preparing the food, asked him to 'please get his lazy other half out of bed.'

Still, Sora had a habit of sneaking off to get into trouble by himself, and the window was normally his way of doing it, so nothing was said until dinner.

However, when Sora didn't show up for dinner, everyone knew something was wrong.

The brunet was known to be slightly irresponsible and air headed, but he had never, NEVER stayed out past dark without telling someone.

That night, the town formed a search party. They combed the woods surrounding the house. Mrs. Strife worriedly wrung her hands and waited at the house with the other housewives in case the boy came home late, while Roxas, Cloud, Sephiroth, Zexion and her husband combed South Woods with the search party.

They turned up nothing, and all went home for a few hours of restless sleep before meeting to try again.

The next morning, they searched in the light.

Cloud and Roxas were the first to find the small scrap of cloth from Sora's nightgown hooked on a loose, protruding nail on the dock over South Wood Lake. They showed it to their father. Everyone saw it as a sign of hope, that they were at least on the right track.

However, after three day of searching and no further sign of Sora, they finally concluded that he had gone out at night to the dock for some reason only the boy knew, and fallen in the water.

One more day of searching, and they admitted defeat.

Little Sora Strife was dead. His body was never to be found.

Fittingly, it rained on the day of his funeral. It was a small affair, simply the family, some friends and the minister. Mrs. Strife broke down and wailed as the empty casket was lowered into the cold, deep grave in the city cemetery. Roxas and Cloud both looked on, faces grim, mouths pressed into straight, cold lines as their father held their mother tightly. Zexion and Sepheroth watched on emotionlessly, the only thing betraying the formers grief being the silent tears flowing down his face.

The Strife family stayed in their house for two more years, until they moved away. During that time, stories say, strange things began to happen, all centering around South Woods. Things no one could, nor wanted, to explain.

The final event, the one that rocked the whole town, was the final straw.

And every night, when the moon was full and high, Roxas Strife swore that he could hear a little voice carried on the wind, crying somewhere in South Wood, mourning the loss of warmth and life in the small, cold body that rested in the pond bed amongst the water weeds.

This is where our story begins.


End file.
